Clock ticking on energy-bill hopes

President Barack Obama will use the first prime-time Oval Office speech of his presidency Tuesday to push for comprehensive climate change legislation.

If only saying it would make it so.

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While advocates of a cap-and-trade plan are thrilled by the prospect that Obama will enter the fray, it’s very much a fray — with Democrats divided, Republicans wary and everyone watching the days tick away to November’s elections.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has scheduled floor time next month for “comprehensive clean energy” legislation — even though he doesn’t know where the votes are for the various proposals floating around the Senate.

At a dinner hosted by the League of Conservation Voters last week, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) insisted that Reid should start the floor debate even without the requisite 60 votes in hand, copycatting the strategy Reid used for health care and Wall Street regulatory reform.

Kerry noted that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was 30 votes short when she brought the Waxman-Markey climate change bill to the floor of the House in the fall — and came out on top.

But several key Senate Democrats fear the politics of the climate issue, and they’re urging Reid to stay clear of the debate — at least until he’s sure he can win.

In a private meeting in Reid’s office last week, Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chairman John Rockefeller argued that Democrats shouldn’t schedule floor time unless and until Kerry demonstrates he has 60 for the bill he and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) are pushing.

Still, others would prefer to avoid the cap-and-trade fight altogether.

Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln, facing a tough reelection fight in Arkansas, said that there’s no need to hold a floor debate on any cap-and-trade proposal — even as an amendment to a Sen. Jeff Bingaman-sponsored bill that was approved last June.

“There’s clearly emphasis to do comprehensive energy,” Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska), a supporter of carbon limits, said of the White House and Senate Democrats. “How they define that is the difficulty.”

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told The New York Times last week that he would expect Reid to pluck ideas from each of the leading Senate proposals out there, including Kerry and Lieberman’s American Power Act; an alternative carbon pricing plan from Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine); Bingaman’s bill, which includes a nationwide renewable energy standard; and energy-efficiency ideas crafted by Sens. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

“There’s enough in each,” Emanuel told the newspaper, for “a serious and comprehensive energy bill. And you can do it this year.”

Last week, Reid ordered Kerry and Lieberman to start working with Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Bingaman, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, to figure out a winning formula.

Throughout his presidency, Obama has allowed the climate bill to fall behind his other big-ticket agenda items, including health care, the economy and Wall Street regulatory reform. But the BP spill in the Gulf has increased the pressure on Obama to act, and he vowed earlier this month to help find the votes on the climate bill.

His remarks Tuesday night are expected to signal that he still wants a big win.

In an interview Friday with POLITICO, Obama suggested the energy issue would remain a focal point throughout his term as the country learns deeper lessons about the oil spill.